While these thoughts were running through his mind he felt a different movement in the raft. This was followed by a cheer from Ike and Wah Shin and the loud barking of the dog.
Sam looked quickly up.
Joy! joy! In some inexplicable way the raft had been hurled so far beyond the circle of the whirlpool's power as to be caught by the current and carried into the Colorado, which here begins its journey under that name, for the Gulf of California.
Even Ulna was roused from his usual stoicism by the change. Pointing to the right, where in the twilight a low peninsula could be seen jutting into the river, he called to Sam:
"Let us steer for that point. I think we can make a landing there."
"All right," replied Sam with his habitual cheerfulness.
Ulna now took up his own pole, and after much effort they succeeded in getting the raft to the low point, and here, without difficulty, they made a landing.
As there was neither tree nor rock to tie to they pulled the raft high up on the strip of beach, and then looked around, but without success, for the means to make a fire.
It was too dark to see ten feet away, so they sat on the rocks after making the discovery that what they supposed to be a peninsula was really an island.
But they made another discovery at the same time that was destined to affect their progress very seriously, and that was that one-half the provisions had in some way been pushed or slipped from the raft; but they were lost, and hunger, or rather, starvation was only a few days off.